[LUAU] LUAU List Policy Please

[R. Scott Belford]

Six years ago personal feelings got the best of good judgment.  It led me to
write the following to one who was getting a bit aggressive:

"Then please censor him in your own email account.  It is not fair for us to
be exposed to your personal grievances with XXX.  He, as a member of our
community, is free to be judged by the other members of the community absent
the bias of any one person."

We then drafted the following list policy, but it was never officially
adopted.  I strongly encourage the admins of this list to adopt this policy
and to include it or something similar in the welcome email when people
subscribe.  LUAU is a really big room where lots of people know one another.


I suppose the key quote from this document I drafted 6 years ago is

"It is harmful not being polite when offering help. Please do not be
condescending to or critical of other participants. Responding to other
members on the list to address personal issues is generally discouraged.
This is a gathering. If you have an issue with a person at a gathering, you
don't disrespect the peace of the others by publicizing your personal
grievances. This communication is best left off the list."


LUAU List Guidelines - 2002

Aloha! Welcome to the mailing list of Hawaii`i's Linux and Unix Advocates
and Users (LUAU). We are pleased that you have decided to join our
gathering. Before you get too wrapped up in the party, perhaps you can take
a few moments to look through our recommended list guidelines. Anytime so
many people get together and welcome your comments in their inbox, it
doesn't hurt to know how to be a welcome guest.

LUAU is a mailing list that encourages discussion about Linux and Unix. It
is a communication venue for users and advocates of the countless
distributions of Linux. It is for the many variants of Unix such as the *bsd
projects.

Unix has given birth to many amazing software projects. Some of these have
been organized within the GNU (gnu is not Unix) endeavor. Some have been
focused on the development of Linux. Because of the existence of the GPL,
these projects are available for anyone to be involved in without paying
money. This is because the source code is Open to the public. Consequently,
many professionals and hobbyists have been able to create software capable
of controlling your home, business, or charity, and it is Free to you.

Advocates are interested in seeing the benefits of Free and Open Source
Software reach more than just the enthusiastic community of current users.
This list invites their experiences or ideas about how to make this
remarkable assimilation of distributed software projects a bigger part of
our society and economy. If you are involved in an interesting project, we
would like to know. Perhaps someone here can help.

Users trying the fruits of these projects may encounter hardware, software,
and programming issues as they attempt to make the computer obey their
wishes. All of their questions are welcome. Regardless of what you may think
as you type it, NO question is stupid or foolish. We all start somewhere;
there is no shame in sharing where you are. Your helpful experiences are
encouraged. We have a WIKI, why not document them there? If you can help
someone, go for it. If you are wrong, there is no harm in trying.

It is harmful not being polite when offering help. Please do not be
condescending to or critical of other participants. Responding to other
members on the list to address personal issues is generally discouraged.
This is a gathering. If you have an issue with a person at a gathering, you
don't disrespect the peace of the others by publicizing your personal
grievances. This communication is best left off the list.

So, this list is about helping. It is about sharing information. If one
wishes to be explicitly critical of a particular software project or a
design feature in a Linux distribution, try to make this criticism with
logic and not emotion. If one really intends to influence the opinion of
every subscriber to this list, please attempt to do so with reason and
experience.

Frankly, we ask that you do not SPAM the list. We define SPAM as Selling a
Product that Asks for Money. Please do not use the opportunity to reach such
a targeted market to push your product. There are subtleties to this policy
that are difficult to be certain of. If you are really uncertain, ask the
listmanager for input. Try to think of it this way: If you are at a party,
you probably don't want someone selling you insurance. You may not mind if
they tell you where they got a great deal on a processor. It wouldn't hurt
to know about volunteer projects you are interested in. It would be nice if
they offered you the chance to earn money doing something you like. In the
context of this mailing list, it is preferable not to sell products on it,
it is okay to share good experiences with vendors, it is okay to share
information about relevant volunteer projects, and it is okay to try to give
the list sponsor or list members money.

Obviously, there are some formatting suggestions that make everyone's
experience better. The first is the theming of a post. If you find a news
event that you want to share, please precede the subject with [NEWS]. Use
this protocol for announcements, [ANNOUNCE] and any other theme you think is
appropriate. If you want to pay someone on the list for a service, please
precede the subject with [SOLICIT] Also, please provide an off-list contact
number or address so that interested parties can privately negotiate with
you.

Replying to a post involves more than just typing in your comment. Try to
delete everything that is not necessary. This is referred to as trimming
your post. Most email clients are set to include the entire message to which
you are responding in your reply. Do you really need to include all of this?
Let us use again consider that this a luau, a gathering. If you approach a
crowd and wish to make a comment, do you repeat everything that everyone has
said before you say your piece, or do you just frame your comment within the
relevant parts of the discussion? Look at your email before you send it and
please remove that which is redundant. This includes the mailing list footer
the bottom of each message.

Mistakes will be made. You may post something inappropriate; you could break
the guidelines. This is of no consequence. Making repeated mistakes is no
problem because we are just human. Please don't be offended if another
subscriber politely suggests a better way to communicate something or that
they found your post off-topic. This only gives you a chance to learn. If
you want to subscribe to and be a member of this group, it is only
appropriate to participate in the few suggested ways. If you want members to
comply with these objectives, please be gentle and diplomatic in your
suggestions.

Effectively ignoring or deliberately neglecting the guidelines is not a
welcome behavior. No one can stop you. You will likely be ignored or placed
into a black list. Please don't deprive others of your experience by
refusing to honor our few guidelines about the theme of the group, the level
of civility we aspire to, and our desire to keep commercialization to a well
defined realm. All of that said, come on in. You are very welcome.


Please note that the first letter of each paragraph spells out "LUAU is for
ME". :-)